There would be no getting together with friends to watch the six film marathon on Blu-ray while enjoying food from a Star Wars cookbook and no celebrations on May 4th.

There would be no stories about the charity work being done by groups like the 501st Legion and Rebel Legion.

There would be no midnight toy release parties in Wal*Mart and no comic on Free Comic Book Day.

There would be no Lucasfilm Ltd., Industrial Light & Magic, Lucasarts, Skywalker Sound, THX or any of the other amazing technologies that derived from the creation of Star Wars.

There would be no Expanded Universe, no phone aps and no Rancho Obi-Wan.

There would be no Star Tours ride at Disney, no film location scouting and no lightsaber umbrellas.

There would be no Space Balls and furthermore, no Star Wars in pop culture.

There would be no Bantha Tracks and no ornaments on the Christmas tree.

There would be no explanation for using the Force to open that (automatic) door at the grocery store or changing that red light to green before you get to it.

There would be no opening crawls or 24-hour t-shirts.

There would be no Main Title playing at weddings and no honeymooning on Naboo.

There would be no fan clubs, message boards or collections.

What would a world without Star Wars be like? It's something that just as easily could have never been. Sure, we would have found something else to latch on to and make our own, but would it have been as much and as widespread as Star Wars is for fans all over the world?

Thankfully...we'll never know.

From all of us here at TheForce.net, Happy Birthday, George. Thank you for everything.